Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALNY), a leading RNAi
therapeutics company, announced today that it has been selected as one
of MIT Technology Review’s 2010 TR50 in its first annual list of
the 50 most innovative companies in the world. This list spans many
industries, including energy, computing, the Web, biomedicine, and
materials. Each company on the list was evaluated based on its business
model, strategies for deploying and scaling up its technologies, and the
likelihood of success.
"Alnylam is a clear leader in one of today’s most promising areas of
drug development – compounds that target RNA. The potential for these
new types of drugs is vast, and Alnylam’s impressive development
portfolio includes treatments for infectious disease, liver cancer,
Huntington’s disease, and high cholesterol,” said Jason Pontin, editor
in chief and publisher of Technology Review. "In choosing the
TR50, we picked companies with this year’s most important inventions and
breakthroughs, as well as those that are successfully growing businesses
and markets around innovative new products. The TR50 list is our
selection of companies that show the most impressive innovation in
commercializing new technologies.”
"Alnylam’s focus on advancing the biological breakthrough known as RNAi
therapeutics as a whole new class of medicines is driven by our
innovation-based culture and our commitment to scientific excellence,”
said John Maraganore, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Alnylam. "It is
indeed an honor to have our efforts and our progress acknowledged by
MIT’s Technology Review alongside Apple, Google, Medtronic, and
GlaxoSmithKline, and to be included in its 2010 TR50 list, the
publication’s inaugural recognition of innovation-based companies.”
About Technology Review, Inc.
Technology Review, Inc., an independent media company owned by MIT, is
the authority on the future of technology, identifying emerging
technologies and analyzing their impact for leaders. Technology Review’s
media properties include Technology Review magazine, the oldest
technology magazine in the world (founded in 1899); the daily news
website TechnologyReview.com; and events such as the annual EmTech@MIT
Conference.
About RNA Interference (RNAi)
RNAi (RNA interference) is a revolution in biology, representing a
breakthrough in understanding how genes are turned on and off in cells,
and a completely new approach to drug discovery and development. Its
discovery has been heralded as "a major scientific breakthrough that
happens once every decade or so,” and represents one of the most
promising and rapidly advancing frontiers in biology and drug discovery
today which was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
RNAi is a natural process of gene silencing that occurs in organisms
ranging from plants to mammals. By harnessing the natural biological
process of RNAi occurring in our cells, the creation of a major new
class of medicines, known as RNAi therapeutics, is on the horizon. Small
interfering RNAs (siRNAs), the molecules that mediate RNAi and comprise
Alnylam’s RNAi therapeutic platform, target the cause of diseases by
potently silencing specific mRNAs, thereby preventing disease-causing
proteins from being made. RNAi therapeutics have the potential to treat
disease and help patients in a fundamentally new way.
About Alnylam Pharmaceuticals
Alnylam is a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics
based on RNA interference, or RNAi. The company is applying its
therapeutic expertise in RNAi to address significant medical needs, many
of which cannot effectively be addressed with small molecules or
antibodies, the current major classes of drugs. Alnylam is leading the
translation of RNAi as a new class of innovative medicines with
peer-reviewed research efforts published in the world’s top scientific
journals including Nature, Nature Medicine, and Cell.
The company is leveraging these capabilities to build a broad pipeline
of RNAi therapeutics; its most advanced program is in Phase II human
clinical trials for the treatment of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)
infection. In addition, the company is developing RNAi therapeutics for
the treatment of a wide range of disease areas, including liver cancers,
TTR-mediated amyloidosis (ATTR), hypercholesterolemia, and Huntington’s
disease. The company’s leadership position in fundamental patents,
technology, and know-how relating to RNAi has enabled it to form major
alliances with leading companies including Medtronic, Novartis, Biogen
Idec, Roche, Takeda, Kyowa Hakko Kirin, and Cubist. Alnylam and Isis are
joint owners of Regulus Therapeutics Inc., a company focused on the
discovery, development, and commercialization of microRNA-based
therapeutics. Founded in 2002, Alnylam maintains headquarters in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. For more information, please visit www.alnylam.com.
Alnylam Forward-Looking Statement
Various statements in this release concerning Alnylam’s future
expectations, plans and prospects, constitute forward-looking statements
for the purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ
materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a
result of various important factors, including the company's ability to
successfully discover and develop novel drug candidates, and
successfully demonstrate efficacy and safety of its drug candidates in
human clinical trials,, as well as those risks more fully discussed in
the "Risk Factors” section of its most recent quarterly report on Form
10-Q on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition,
any forward-looking statements represent Alnylam’s views only as of
today and should not be relied upon as representing its views as of any
subsequent date. Alnylam does not assume any obligation to update any
forward-looking statements.
